Reykjavik — Capital of Iceland
Reykjavik is the world's northernmost capital, home to the oldest parliament still in operation, and the city that gave the English language the word 'geyser'. In 1980 its country became the first in the world to democratically elect a female president — and in 1986 Reagan and Gorbachev nearly ended the Cold War here.
About Reykjavik — Capital of Iceland
Reykjavik sits at 64 degrees north latitude, making it the world's northernmost capital city. Its population of around 140,000 — approximately two-thirds of Iceland's entire population — lives in a city that runs almost entirely on renewable energy: geothermal and hydroelectric sources supply close to 100% of Iceland's electricity and heat the city's pavements and swimming pools. The landscape that makes this possible — volcanic, geothermally active, constantly shifting — also gave English one of its geological terms: the word 'geyser' is borrowed directly from the Icelandic Geysir, a hot spring in southwest Iceland. The nearby Strokkur geyser erupts reliably every five to ten minutes.
The city's name translates as 'Smoky Bay' — from the Old Norse reykr (smoke) and vík (bay) — a reference to the geothermal steam that rose from the ground when the Norse settler Ingólfr Arnarson arrived around 874 AD. He became Iceland's first permanent settler, and the site he chose has been continuously inhabited ever since. Iceland's settlement coincided with the establishment of the Althing (Alþingi) in 930 AD at Þingvellir, a dramatic rift valley where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. The Althing is generally considered the world's oldest parliament still in continuous operation.
Iceland's church, Hallgrímskirkja, dominates the Reykjavik skyline from its hilltop position. At 74.5 metres, it is the tallest building in Iceland. Its design by architect Guðjón Samúelsson deliberately echoes the hexagonal basalt lava columns found throughout Iceland — vast formations created when lava cools slowly. Construction began in 1945 and was not completed until 1986, a span of 41 years.
Iceland made history in 1980 by electing Vigdís Finnbogadóttir as president — the world's first democratically elected female head of state. Six years later, in October 1986, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik's Hofdi House for a summit that came astonishingly close to agreeing the complete elimination of nuclear weapons — an agreement that ultimately failed on a single point of contention but fundamentally changed the trajectory of the Cold War. Iceland has no standing army, making it one of the very few sovereign nations in the world without a military force.